Being a Tourist in Gettysburg

Gee, I must be having civil war week or something. *strange*


Today I went with my family to the new visitor's center in Gettysburg. Wow! The whole town was teeming with people. I've never seen it quite so. This weekend is the infamous Gettysburg Reenactment. 10,000-15,000 reenactors invade the town to recreate history. On every sidewalk, at every turn, behind every monument, in every restaurant, men in uniform and ladies in hoop dresses mill about. It is quite a spectacle.

We went on a guided tour (provided by the Museum and Visitor Center) following the path of General Garnett's men during Pickett's charge. We were given a formation that we had to follow while marching through grass as tall as me and climbing over a couple fences too. It was insane. Union soldiers would've been firing at us as we were charging toward them, sometimes taking out up to 15 soldiers with one blow. What an experience! I pretty much hated it, and I wasn't fearing for my life, wearing a wool jacket, carrying a weapon, being blinded by smoke, deafened by cannon fire, wounded, tired, or following a confederate flag to my death. Hmmmm.

Then we walked through the historic downtown of Gettysburg and ate at a little local restaurant. We were looking at license plates on all the cars buzzing through the town and almost every state in the US was represented. This whole reenacting stuff is serious business. I had no idea.

The Civil War Recreated

This weekend in Shippensburg is March to Destiny, an annunal event that recreates the history of the civil war. I wanted to see what this whole reenactment thing was all about so I went to a live "skirmish" today. Men (and a few women) dressed in uniforms reminicent of 1863 took the streets with period equipment. They battled down King Street lining up and shooting their guns, practicing all the tactics they would have actually used during the civil war.


I have never seen anything quite like this before. It was educational to say the least. The shots were so loud, the cannon ones especially. My favorite part was when a soldier got wounded or killed. They fell in the street and men stepped over him until someone came (eventually) to drag him off the street. It was fun to watch---you know, in that sick kind of can't-take-your-eyes-off-of-it way.

I couldn't imagine having been a soldier during the civil war. They had to be so close to the enemy while having next to no protection. You just had to stand there while a brigade of soldiers shot in your direction. There's no way you could expect to live to see the light of tomorrow. I think the reenactment made me glad to live in today's world and to be thankful for the soldiers who did fight to preserve the union and abolish slavery.